Southwest Scene.

Just Follow Your Nose To A Sweet-smelling Shop

If you go to the lower level of Ford City Shopping Center in Chicago, close your eyes and follow your nose, you will be drawn into a small aromatic store that resembles an apothecary's shop.

Along one wall are small bottles that contain more than 100 perfumed oils used by owners Deborah Chambers and Ra Akee to create customized fragrances ($5 per one-eighth ounce to $25 per ounce, depending on the number of oils chosen by the customer). Just the Scent of It! offers an array of redolent products appealing to one's olfactory and, according to Chambers, psychological and health needs.

"We concentrate on essential oils, which are the therapeutic, natural part of everything," Chambers says. "People who want to care for themselves without synthetic materials massage the essential oils on aching muscles, bathe in them to tone the skin and use them to ease cold symptoms and other ailments."

Chambers recommends that new customers first buy a book on the healing art of oils ($3.50 to $22.50) to determine how the essential oils can help them, then try the oils. Essential oils range from $5.50 per half-ounce for lemon or orange oil to $32 per half-ounce for chamomile.

"You only use a drop at a time," Chambers stresses. Pre-blended essential oils, like PMS Blend, said to ease premenstrual discomfort, are also available.

Natural oil soaps ($4.50 per cut bar), including vanilla, lavender, frankincense and myrrh, are cut from a foot-long soap block. A wide variety of incense, incense burners, ash catchers, natural potpourri and scented candles are displayed as well. Unscented massage oils, bubble bath, shower gel and body lotion ($10.50 to $12.50) can be combined with the perfumed oils for a personal touch.

It's not only the products that are unusual. The attention that each customer receives is like, well, a breath of fresh air. Chambers and Akee share an enthusiasm for educating customers. Says Chambers: "When people walk into the store, they don't know what they're looking at. This gives us the opportunity to explain everything."